That was the moment I stepped over the line that separates anger from resignation. There may still be a little over three quarters of the season left but there's no evidence at all to suggest that our return to the NPL isn't going to last beyond May. So instead of spending the next seven torturous months getting exasperated by on field events, once I've finished this report I'm just going to enjoy our time in the Premier Division whilst it lasts.
Why? Because there's no point worrying about something that isn't or has no indication of getting better. To take, and slightly alter, a great line from Frasier:
"At Cornell University they have an incredible piece of scientific equipment known as the electron tunneling microscope. Now this microscope is so powerful that by firing electrons you can actually see images of the atom; the infinitesimally minute building block of our universe. If I were using that microscope right now, I still wouldn't be able to locate any improvement on the pitch since the start of the season."
How many times does something have to happen before the problem it's causing is addressed? For example, take any of the five games we've played at Seel Park this season. In every single one we've looked like an away side setting our stall out for a 0-0 draw. Not once have we tried to take the initiative, run the game at our own tempo or put the visitors on the back foot. Instead we've just sat deep and worried about what our opponents are going to do.
If we were playing good sides I may have, just slightly, understood why were being so ultra negative and cautious but we were playing Guiseley - a team that we'd dominated and been unlucky to lose against a week earlier. And at their own ground too!
Anyhoo, I'll just move on to giving a brief run down of what happened in the game. After all it is a match report.
As I touched on earlier, Mossley started the game sitting deep thereby allowing Guiseley time to settle, take control of the game and dictate the play. So it didn't come as any real surprise when they took the lead in the 19th minute. They'd already created a few half chances before Rob Edwards gave away a needless free-kick just over 20 yards out but central to the goal. It looked too difficult an opportunity to score from but thanks to the never before seen tactic of... er, putting their own man on the end of the wall and moving away just before the kick took place, a gap opened up and Denton hit the ball as straight as an arrow in to the bottom corner of the net. Why was there no one positioning themselves behind the Guiseley player in the wall? Oops! Sorry... there I go again with the rhetoricals.
The goal failed to knock Mossley out of their defensively minded stupor and they paid the price once again in the 32nd minute. A Guiseley corner was met by a free header from Sturdy in the six yard box and it sailed past Danny Trueman (caught in no mans land) and the man on the back post. No, wait a minute, there was no one on the back post. Take a look at the photo of the second Guiseley goal below and bear in mind that we went behind in the previous home game through Terry Bowker having to mark two players on his own at the back post from a corner. This time there's no one there to pick up two opponents in the event of the ball making its away across the box. They say that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it - not us, we just add a few flourishes to make it that little bit different.
The Guiseley keeper was called into action just once during the first forty five minutes and only then when one of his centre halves sliced the ball backwards. Other than that Mossley's only foray forward came when Terry Bowker did what his midfield should have been doing all game and ran at Guiseley. Picking the ball up from outside his own area he ran forward and carved open the Yorkshiremen. Unfortunately this moment of inspiration appeared to catch his team mates unawares and the opportunity to punish Guiseley on the break was wasted.
Eight minutes into the second half we actually had a shot. It went wide but it was shot nonetheless and was created through our first real forceful attack down a flank. Hopes of it being anything other than a blip were quickly dashed though as Steve Burke and debutant Peter Wright were forced to do the best they could with long balls from the back and no support.
The forward pairing was the umpteenth combination we've tried up front this season so far and the results have been the same every time. Instead of chopping and changing the front line every game, wouldn't it better to let two players work out an understanding and address the real problem - how they're supplied? We could stick Thierry Henry up front and nothing would change because even he needs support and the occasional pass.
In the 75th minute two goals became three when the Mossley defence ran out of bodies in trying to keep the ball out of the net. Between them they'd blocked three efforts only to watch in despair as the Guiseley midfield moved forward and Smithard applied the finishing touch. As the visitors wheeled away celebrating the defence looked understandably irate at the lack of help afforded to them; no Mossley midfielder having tracked back to cover their opponents push forward. Game over and still fifteen minutes to play.
The long overdue introduction of Martin Allison to proceedings finally allowed Joe Shaw to play his more natural game, though even he will admit he should have done better when he fired high and wide with only the keeper to beat from the edge of the box. Peter Wright then gave an example of what could happen when you employ the novel idea of passing the ball to a striker in the box. The former Chorley man turned quickly in the corner of the area and produced a curling shot that hammered back off the cross bar.
And that was that until deep into five inexplicable minutes of injury time when Mossley won a rather fortuitous corner. Joe Shaw swung it in from the left and it kept on swinging into the back of net to wipe the big fat zero next to Mossley's name from the score sheet.
So, just like the Ilkeston and Matlock games, our opponents leave Seel Park with three goals and three points whilst only putting the bare minimum of effort in. Make no bones about it, this was an extremely comfortable win for an average side that we'd dominated for long periods in a match seven days previously. It doesn't get worse than that does it? Ah! But it does. Not only was it in an embarassing defeat, it was one that will be broadcast to the rest of the UK and most of Europe thanks to the Channel M camera that was there to the cover the game.
The question is (yes, another one) where do we go from here? I'd like to think that we're only experiencing a few reorientation problems on our return the Premier Division but I can't. Even at this early stage we are the bus at the end of the Italian Job; teetering precariously between safety and a large drop. Until the the problems inflicting us are addressed there's only one way we'll be heading from this precipice. Maybe we could get Michael Caine in to sort things out because he at least came up with an idea, whereas we seem to be repeating the mistakes that got us into the situation in the first place. It's not too late to stop the slide and the infuriating thing is that what needs to be done is basic stuff. I don't mind losing just as long as we give it a go and in the last two home games we haven't even got that.
Anyway that's it. I've said all I'm going to say on the subject and from now on I'm just going to do what I set out to do in the first place - enjoy the games, the camaraderie and have a laugh whatever happens. I'll be there almost every week cheering the team on, hoping to write about great performances, good wins and unlucky defeats but what I won't be doing is getting angry and despondent at poor performances anymore. Life's too short and most of us have been here before.
I don't want anyone sacked and hounded out of the club and nor am I advocating that a revolution take place. All I and many others want is to see the tiniest improvement and an inkling that we've got the fight to stay in this division. Nothing more, nothing less.
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